National Park/Lennon

It has been a pretty rainy couple of weeks which means we haven’t been doing very much so today I thought I would just tell you about our fun trip to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and then a little about what Lennon’s been up to.

The national park is only a 30 minute drive from where we live, and it’s a really pretty drive and there are actually a couple ski resorts there! The hills are like bunny hills from what we could see, it was pretty funny.  Inside the park there’s a path that follows the old Erie Canal, this is the path the donkeys used to walk on while they pulled the boats down the canal (the tow path). We were planning to walk up the path about 4 miles and ride the Cuyahoga Valley railroad train back, but once we got there we found out that the train rides had been cancelled for the day because of all the rain, the bridges were flooding! We ended up just getting some ice cream and walking up the path a little ways so we could see the canal. It was really neat to see the canal and all the old houses and farms along the sides of it. We drove around the park after that and saw a cool covered bridge and Brandywine falls. The ranger said the falls has never had so much water coming down, it’s really crazy the amount of rain we’ve been getting out here.

Enough about all that, let’s talk about Lennon. My little guy is 16 months old!

He loves to read books, play with cars, and his giant lego set. He likes to watch all the bugs and birds he sees outside. He will spot an ant on the ground and follow it around saying “anch, anch” which is his version of “ant”. He likes to watch trucks, tractors, motorcycles, airplanes, anything that makes a sound. One of his favorite things to do is go on walks and just watch and point at all the cars he sees. He’s been really cute lately, he’s starting to really laugh hard. The other night he was laughing so hard in the bathtub he had tears rolling down his face. It’s so fun to see him become this little human with a real personality.  

Parade the Circle/Downtown

This week has been really fun! Saturday Taylor and I took the boys to an event called ‘Parade the Circle’ put on by the Cleveland Museum of Art. It was a huge parade and all of the entries were just local people who dressed up, played instruments, danced, wore stilts, decorated their wheel chairs, carried a trampoline with an acrobat on it, whatever they could create. It was awesome. I wish I could’ve got some better pictures but there were a ton of people and we were pretty far back. 

Girl on stilts riding a really tall tricycle 

Sunday the 3 of us went exploring downtown. We saw the Indian’s field, the Cavalier’s stadium, and the Brown’s stadium. One of the Cavaliers playoff games was on Sunday so the whole town was wearing maroon and there were Cavaliers flags and signs that said “ALL IN” everywhere. So, besides all the Cavs events going on, Cleveland itself is really cool. I bet we’ll go back and spend a little more time there if it ever stops raining.

(Don't mind my snapchat screen shots)

Indoor shopping center

"King James"

Playhouse Square

Last night Lennon and I were able to meet up with Aunt Dawn, Uncle Dick, and Margy’s cousin Diane. Dick and Dawn were travelling through on their way home from a wedding and Diane lives in Akron so we all met there for dinner. It was so fun to see some family!

Today we drove two and a half hours to Columbus where we will be staying until Saturday. Hopefully I have some fun Columbus things to talk about in my next post!

Nature Trail/Cedar Point

It’s been a couple weeks since my last update. Lennon and I have been keeping ourselves pretty busy. His friend Brixton got a little blow up pool and we have been over there a few times to swim.

We’ve spent a lot of time going for walks along the nature trail. Lennon especially likes to walk down to the river and throw rocks in. Every time he throws one he says “doh!” I think he’s trying to say “throw”. It’s pretty funny to see how excited he gets when he actually throws a rock far enough that it lands in the water and makes a sound. He points at every squirrel, bird, and deer that we see. He has a good eye for spotting them too, a lot of times he sees them before I do.

Sunday we got to go to Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky. Kyle’s sales team won an incentive from corporate and they paid for all of us to go. The first ride we went on was the ferris wheel, it was huge and so windy at the top. It was neat because the park is at the end of a peninsula on Lake Erie so from up there you can see the huge lake on all sides of the park. Lennon wasn’t that impressed with that ride, he ate a peanut butter sandwich and waited to get down. The next ride we let him go on was the little airplanes, his first solo ride! When the worker said he was old enough to go alone I was pretty nervous, I wasn’t sure if he would try and stand up or if he would get scared but we buckled him in tight and he just sat still the entire time. After that he got to go on quite a few rides alone. Kyle and I got to go on a couple of rides. One of us would stay with Lennon while the other would go on a roller coaster and then we would switch. After the rides we took Lennon to the splash pad, his favorite part of the day. I have never seen him so excited over anything before. Kyle posted a video on Instagram and Facebook if you haven’t seen it already. It’s really cute. 

Here are just a couple of random pictures. 

Downtown Cleveland.

Playground at the mall.

Lennon loves playing in the shade tent in the living room.